28.6.04

Skydiving

So, I went skydiving this weekend. http://www.jumprun.com/ It's on my list of things to do before I die. I had to make sure it wasn't the last thing I did or else I'd die. As long as there were things still on my list, I can't die. It's like being invincible. Actually, I'm only half joking. You hear how baseball players are superstitious? So am I. Totally. I was pretty calm at first, but then when it happened, there was much freaking out going on. I noticed that it was hard to breathe up in the air. I'm not sure if that was nerves or the air itself. But it quickly passed. It was about two breaths in that just felt like someone was sitting on my chest. That's why I think it was nerves and not altitude. Then again, I was free falling pretty fast. I wasn't nervous when I was putting on the oh so sexy equipment that was so padded I couldn’t even move, I wasn't nervous getting on the plane, watching the ground get farther and farther away (there is no back to the plane so you can see it all). I wasn't nervous when we stood up to jump, or when people started jumping. But then, the person two in front of me (a single jumper; I was the first of three tandem ones) did a somersault off the plane. And I was like "what the heck?" And then I'm next, and my toes are hanging over the plane, 13,000 feet in the air (the distance when we jump) and I was like "what the hell am I thinking? Am I insane?" (They tell you not to look down...never one to follow directions, I did) and I was gonna tell Finn (the guy who was tied to me, literally you could feel ANY AND EVERY MOVEMENT, if you catch my drift) that I changed my mind, and the next thing I knew I was falling b/c he just walked off the plane and I'm attached to him. And then, I was falling.

In my mind, it was just like being in a roller coaster - that feeling of falling when you know that you are safe b/c it's controlled and you aren't really falling at all, it's just a sensation, or when you wake up with that falling sensation but you know that you aren’t really and you are completely safe. It just wasn't real. Of course, when I landed, it occurred to me that yes, I actually WAS falling and that it WAS real. But that occurred to me when I was on the ground, not when I was in the air. You are supposed to arch your back and look up, not down, but I kept looking down. Not cause I was scared at that point, but because it was so friggin awesome.

The view just absolutely rocks. There was a rainbow in a cloud, and we WENT THROUGH IT! Going through a cloud was weird. It wasn't soft, and I thought I'd get wet, but it's really just a mist. Like when you go to the hair place and they use that bottle to mist your hair. Just really light. And I lost my contact sometime around 12,000 feet (really early on). So when I landed, I had to take my goggles off (yes, I had oh so sexy goggles) and found it and just plopped it my mouth until I could get saline solution. But it was by far the coolest thing I've ever done. It was so beautiful up there. You can see all this green. I was surprised b/c it was SO cold out. It was only 53 at the time, and I guess it's 3 degrees colder for every 1000 feet, so at 13,000 feet, its 39 degrees colder. They kept telling me to smile and I was like "I'm too cold. My teeth are getting frostbitten."

The landing (the part I was most nervous about. I mean, even if the chute doesn't open it's the landing that sucks, not the falling) was really easy too. There are too ways to land, by standing or by sitting, and it's determined by how fast you are coming into the ground. He thought we could stand, and at the last minute, we had to sit (coming in too fast and too sharp). But it was nothing, and even the people who stood, it was nothing. It was awesome. I recommend it.